Session 447: Getting Through Friendship Breakups

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or

(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much

(00:57):
for joining me for session four forty seven of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after word from our sponsors. Friendships are a lifeline
for us. Friends keep our secrets, they celebrate our wins,

(01:20):
and hold us up during the difficult times. So when
a friendship ends for whatever reason, there's an acute grief
associated with no longer having this lifeline, and sadly, this
grief is often misunderstood and minimized. Today, I'm sharing some
thoughts on why friendship breakups are so difficult to navigate.
What kind of support you may need to get through one,

(01:43):
and how you might know if it's time for a
friendship to end. When we were planning out the episodes
for this year's January Jumpstar series, we knew we wanted
to include an episode on friendship breakups because there aren't
enough spaces that talk about ways you change after a
friendship ends, about the grief you carry, the stories and

(02:05):
laughs that you feel like no longer have a place
to live. And so our hope is that this episode
gives you a place to land, a place where your
grief can be seen and honored. Let's start by digging
more into the grief associated with the ending of a friendship.
And I actually talk about this quite a bit in
my Book's Sisterhood. Heals the grief associated with something like

(02:26):
a friendship breakup or the loss of a job. These
things fall into the category of what we call disenfranchised grief.
This is grief that is the result of experiences that
fall outside of what people typically think should be grieved.
For example, when a loved one dies, there's typically a
huge outpouring of support. There are rituals that are followed,

(02:46):
people show up with food and other things to comfort you.
You often get time off from work. There's a very
clear understanding that this is an upsetting experience and that
of course you should be tended to gently with this
enfranchise grief. Those same rituals don't often exist, and so
it's not uncommon that you will hear people say things like, oh,

(03:08):
she wasn't a good friend to you anyway, or oh,
don't worry about it, you have plenty of other friends. Well,
even if those things are true, it doesn't actually help
the person who is currently feeling devastated that they no
longer have the same connection they've once did to somebody
who's been very important in their lives. So the grief

(03:30):
related to friendship breakups can be more intense because it's
not honored in the same ways, and others don't always
hold space for the sadness and the grief that is
actually associated with losing a friend. The grief of friendship
loss is also incredibly painful because we often create entire
worlds with our friends. They're shared history, they shared language,

(03:52):
inside jokes, et cetera. Our friends are often our chosen family.
They extend the ones that were created in our families
of origin, and even in some cases replace them. Friendships
are not placeholders or substitutions for something else. They are
central and relevant relationships with people who we choose and

(04:14):
who choose us. So when they end, where do all
of those memories and stories go? Who else will get
those jokes? Losing this kind of connection is painful and
can often lead to a real crisis in belonging, identity,
and worth. The ending of a friendship also poses challenges

(04:35):
like what happens with mutual friends? Do you still visit
the same places that y'all went to together? Do you
remove any evidence of them from your TikTok? Do you
have to share this information with your online platforms? In
terms of mutual friends, I think it's good to have
a conversation with them about what you'd like to happen

(04:56):
move forward. If you prefer not to be invited to
anything with a former friend anymore, or at least for
the time being, it's okay to say that if you
prefer they not share updates about you with them, and
vice versa. It's also okay to say that, and it's
also okay to expect and acknowledge that your feelings may change.

(05:16):
How you feel one month after the breakup may be
completely different than how you feel two years after the breakup,
and I think it's a good rule of thumb for
navigating any of these experiences post breakup to choose what
feels right to you and honors your feelings in that moment,
and to stay open to the idea that things will

(05:36):
likely shift. One of the things that often comes up
in conversation about friendship breakups is how do you know
when to end things with a friend? And since it's
the beginning of a new year and you may be
in the process of evaluating your relationships, let's get into
a little bit of that. It would be impossible to
go through all the scenarios that might result in you

(05:57):
deciding to end a friendship. Generally, I think experiences where
you feel like your needs are not being met consistently
and repeatedly, even after you've been clear and asking is
a red flag. When you are being disrespected, taunted, and belittled,
that is a red flag. When trust is violated and

(06:20):
the violation is too large for you to overcome, This
is likely an indication that it may be best to
walk away. It's important to note here that friendships don't
always end because some big bad thing happened. Sometimes we
just grow apart, we just move in different directions. This
doesn't mean that it hurts any less to lose that connection,

(06:41):
but I do think is an important caveat, because I
think many of us hold on to connections where we
are not being honored and our needs are not being
met simply because nothing awful has happened. And I want
you to know that it is okay to walk away
simply because you no longer feel like something is a
good fit for you. And I wonder if we can

(07:02):
actually hold space for that the ways that we sometimes
just grow apart. No one has to be the villain.
There is no love lost. We are simply in different
places that may no longer intersect. Some signs that a
relationship actually may be worth repairing are one if sincere

(07:25):
apologies are offered for any wrongdoing, or if the rupture
is caused by a life transition something like a new child,
a move, a new job. These kinds of things often
uproot our sense of normalcy in a way that's really upsetting,
but it can also be really joyous, And so I
think we get confused and don't always have the words

(07:46):
and the language to talk about how we're feeling in
these moments, and so we don't know how to say
I miss you, even though I know baby needs all
of your attention right now. I think that those kinds
of ruptures can be repaired and friendships can actually be
stronger on the other side, if all parties are committed
to actually hearing each other more from our conversation after

(08:17):
the break. Now that we've talked about the grief related
to friendship breakups and how to know if you need
to end one, we also have to take a very
close and long look at ourselves in relationships and how

(08:38):
our own stuff shows up in our friendships. Are we
someone who gives and gives without ever asking for support
and then becomes resentful. Always someone who gets jealous if
a friend makes a new friend and now we don't
feel like there's any longer a place for us. Always
someone who makes romantic love central in our lives, leaving

(08:59):
our our girls to feel left out and unimportant. Because
relationships involve multiple people when they end, it's important to
look at what role we played in the relationship and
how we might want to show up differently in the future,
if at all, not as a way of shaming ourselves
or placing blame, but as an honest assessment of who

(09:21):
we were in that relationship. There are things about ourselves
that we may not even know about ourselves until it
is revealed in the confines of a relationship. Maybe we
did way too much sacrificing, or maybe we struggle to
assert ourselves and ask for what we needed. Maybe we
took up too much space and didn't show up in
the ways we had hoped we would. Maybe we've been

(09:44):
taught that conflict is a dirty word and that at
the first sign of a disagreement we have to get out.
All of this is valuable information to know about ourselves
that can actually help inform how we show up in
relationships in the future. So what happens next? The friendship
has ended, and maybe you still feel conflicted because you

(10:06):
don't know exactly why it ended. This is often difficult
because our mind wants to make sense of things A
plus B equal C, So it may feel difficult to
move on without this closure. But the truth is that
oftentimes closure is something we have to give ourselves. That
means crying it out when you feel like you need to.

(10:26):
Leaning on supportive people who don't make you feel silly
about the friendship breakup. Maybe that's other friends, maybe it's
a therapist, but it needs to be someone. Healing is
not meant to happen alone. Ask for the support that
you so readily offer to other people, and when you're ready,
there will be new friends. Much like with a romantic breakup.

(10:50):
In the thick of it, you can't imagine you'll ever
love again, but you do, and you will. It's important
to know that all the new people who come into
your life won't necessarily hurt you or disappoint you, and
that even if that next friend is not your new BFF,
you have the resources and support to deal with disappointment
and rejection. You're now armed with new information about who

(11:13):
you are, about what you desire and a friend, and
about what you would like friendship to feel like. As
painful as it is, and you may not be here yet,
there are new people to choose and new people who
will choose you. If you're currently experiencing the loss of
a friendship, I want you to know that you are
not alone and that the grief you're feeling is valid.

(11:37):
Something that may help is taking some time to write
a letter to this former friend sharing all the things
you feel like have been left unsaid. What apologies do
you want to offer? What apologies do you feel like
you are actually old in? What ways? Do you feel
like you failed to show up in? What ways? Could

(11:58):
they have showed up more? What lingering questions do you have?
What would you want to say or know if you
could have one final conversation with this person now. This
is not a letter that you will send. This is
simply an exercise for you to get clearer on what
you're actually holding. One thing that I wish that more

(12:19):
people understood about friendship breakups is that the grief is
very real, and that tenderness and gentleness go a very
long way. A green flag in relationships or friends who
are just excited or maybe even more excited about your
accomplishments and achievements as you are. Something to release this

(12:40):
year to make space for better relationships is our reluctance
to ask for help. If you're in the middle of
a friendship breakup right now, I want you to cry
as long as you need to, but also know that
you will be okay and that you have not yet
met all the people who will love you In one
word my twenty twenty six metamorphosis is ease. To support

(13:05):
my metamorphosis this year, I am more fiercely protecting my time.
If you find yourself waiting through the waters of a
friendship breakup, I hope this has been helpful to you.
If you're looking for support, we love to have you
join us in our patreon for our Sunday night check in,
where we will be walking through the pages of our

(13:26):
Friendship Breakup Companion guide, designed to help you process the
grief of the breakup. You can join us at community
dot therapy for blackgirls dot com. If you have additional
questions you'd like to have answered after you listen to
the episode, or have ideas for another topic you'd like
to hear discussed, send us a message at Therapy for
Blackgirls dot com, slash mailbox, or leave us a voice

(13:49):
message at Memo dot fm slash Therapy for Black Girls.
This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indechubu and Tyree Rush.
Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so
much for joining me again this week. I look forward
to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take
good care,

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Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Session 447: Getting Through Friendship Breakups